epic

IN A WORLD WHERE AN OKAY BIG-TEN TEAM VS GUYS WHO JUST GOT BLANKED BY USF AT HOME IS A HUGE DEAL…

Interior: Pentagon [yes, I completely copied parts of that link]. In a huge dark room full of computer screens and a huge mega screen in the center, displaying a large American flag. It is the operations center for the secret government agency for counter-nuclear robot space terrorism. A beautiful woman is at her station: platinum blonde with a huge rack. She is the hottest woman in the world, but she wears glasses because she is also the smartest woman in the world.

WOMAN Sir, you'd better come take a look at this.

We pan to a man in his mid-50's and an expensive tailored suit (note: can we get Jon Voight?) He is the head of this super-secret operation and utterly ruthless.

BRIAN KELLY What is it agent Scarbo?

WOMAN There's been movement in the tree sector alpha. Just a blip on the screen; it was moving so fast. But it was blue and maize had a dilithium signature of one dash six. Sir?

KELLY Oh. My. God.

WOMAN Sir, do you know what this is?

KELLY Agent, I want you to forget you ever saw this. Send me your files then never speak of it again.

WOMAN Sir? Sir do you know what this is?

Kelly is already on his phone, ignoring Agent Scarbo.

KELLY Get me Agent Te'o. It's back.

So if you haven't heard, this game is gonna be epic. The two winningest (this is not a word) teams in college football, the biggest stadium in the game, kicking off at the timeslot calculated by secret government operatives (note: cast secret gov't operatives) to be the most epic possible moment to kick off a football game. It has its own name "Under the Lights," its own logo, and outfits, and Web site, not to mention a squadron of jets which will transform into Decepticons and battle Space Bear at half-time. It's not just gonna be epic (cjm) …

Imminent Threats to National Security

So long as BlueSeoul has screen capture, Microsoft Paint, and time on his hands, it's going to be hard for anyone else to win Diarist of the Week. He gets it this week for the EPIC scouting job on ND, but so this doesn't become a '90s Florida State in the ACC situation, every time he posts one of these I'm just gonna award him 200 points and give the DotW to someone else.

In other explosive semi-regular posts resurfacing from offseason burial on the moon to wreck havoc upon the Earth, remember when Chris Danger Logic Danger of Danger is Dangerous or w/e would put Brian's picture pages to video? He's back at it, at least for the freshman vs. power running Picture Page earlier this week.

Also in helpfulness, michiganfanforlife has made a handy Game Chart I guess you're supposed to fill out like a box score. If people were to do this and post it that would be pretty epic. The point:

You can then create statistics that will tell you things like, "On first down, the opposition runs 75% of the time." Or, "This team likes to run the ball in their own territory and pass more in yours." There are endless ways of breaking down the small amount of columns I used.

The Biggest Most Ever Thing Ever or What to Read While Waiting All Day for a Football Game

Because of a bunch of pencil-neck bastards (production note: we need to cast some pencil-neck bastards for this movie) at NCAA might not count stats accumulated during the Western game (I have a question in to Ablauf) this MASSIVE EPIC HUGE AWESOME ALSO HUMONGOUS Almanac of Records by Communist Football that took him all of offseason might still be up to date.

Aliens from the Future Are Omniscient Gods

The great thing about a badly written movie is that the bad guys will tell you every thing about their nefarious plans. And so it was that Irish, our friendly neighborhood green (sometimes navy and gold – really what the hell are ND's colors?) alien gives us the breakdown of his entire evil secret government organization, split up nicely into:

And then our own resident future alien from the future (line breaks followed by periods are for hiding the lasers for stealing souls), THE_KNOWLEDGEhas his thing.

Massive Planetary Storm

Last week a meteor the size of Charlie Weiss struck the Earth at the exact same time as an earthquake along every fault caused 40 tsunamis. This combined with the unfortunate simultaneous explosion of every Iowa running back, every ACL in West Lafayette, and a strange phenomenon scientists (note: cast scientists) call a "Kovacsian Sack" to create a supermassive storm capable of leveling entire football quarters. Various accounts from the survivors follow:

Please help us rescue jhackney, who has been trapped under the ice with nothing but Dick Cheney and a video of the Gator Bowl. Every time Michigan runs POWER ISO out of the I-formation, j is an inch closer to freedom. We did manage to rescue Lordfoul but he's still jibbering.

This thing from Erik in Dayton where he watches the D in slo-mo and takes notes is kind of like a defensive UFR but way shorter and kind of useful for getting a feel for the flow of the game on that side of the ball.

Gratuitous Explosion:

The more you hear about the defense, the more you hear about the 3-4. An example:

Ezeh said the team's defense under new coordinator Greg Robinson would mostly resemble a 3-4 ... One defensive player whose position has been adjusted is Stevie Brown. After playing (and often struggling) at safety last year, Brown will fill a hybrid outside linebacker-safety spot in the revamped defense

But I don't think it's an actual 3-4, by which I mean a Pittsburgh Steelers style 3-4 with big space-eating defensive linemen and havoc-wreaking linebackers. 3-4 versus 4-3 is often a proxy for a more fundamental distinction between defenses: one gap versus two. Wikipedia:

Sometimes the defensive scheme says he is responsible for only one gap - it's his job to make sure the running back can't come through his gap, and the other gaps will be someone else's responsibility. In this case we say the tackle is playing in a one gap defense. The tackle will line up right in the gap, not directly facing any offensive lineman.

In other schemes, the tackle will be responsible for two gaps. In this case the tackle will line up directly facing an offensive lineman, and his job will be to push that lineman backwards and make sure the running back doesn't run past on either side of his lineman.

If you want to play a two gap scheme, you need larger stronger defensive tackles who can control an offensive lineman or even two offensive linemen. If you want to play a one gap scheme you can use slightly smaller defensive tackles who are faster and more athletic and can penetrate into the offensive backfield more often. In a two gap scheme, the tackles are supposed to control the linemen, thus making sure that no one is blocking the linebackers behind them and the linebackers are then free to make the play and tackle the runner. So in a two gap scheme, you don't expect the defensive tackles to have a large number of sacks or tackles.

NFL style 3-4s are two-gap defenses with huge nose tackles and huge, mobile defensive ends who would probably be DTs in a 4-3. In college these sorts of folk are rare and the 3-4 is decidedly unpopular.

When it does emerge you get this a lot:

The picture is small, but that's USC in 2006. Note that the nearest defensive end is in a two-point stance.

You might recognize this defense because it's the one that blew up Michigan's zone stretch in the 2006 Rose Bowl. USC used Brian Cushing as a defensive end, but stood him up. This is basically a 4-3 defense with some extra frippery: you can back Cushing off or shift the line into another set of techniques or actually use it as a 3-4, or a 5-2 by moving the other linebacker up and loading the middle of the line:

That's what USC did in the Rose Bowl, putting one player on every gap and shooting it as soon as the line moved one way or the other.

So, it's a 3-4. Brian Cushing is technically a linebacker on the roster. But it's not a 3-4, as it's mostly a one-gap defense. In the NFL these days you're hearing a lot about "hybrid" defenses that shift from 3-4 to 4-3 based on situation, and that's what USC 2006 D was. They completely shut down Michigan's powerful rushing attack by shifting to a different front.

Given the wacky nomenclature of Michigan's Herrmann-era defensive line, which had a DE, an NT, a DT, and a "rush linebacker" I'm pretty sure that Michigan defenses from the era before I was paying enough attention to know were also flexible. This is what Robinson means by "multiple fronts."

Michigan is poised to go back to the future with three down linemen, two traditional linebackers, and a couple of hybrid folk. The "spinner" is a standup defensive end who plays on the weakside, and the "Stevie Brown isn't a safety" is a hybrid linebacker/safety sort who is probably going to function a lot like Brandon Harrison did under Ron English. Michigan had a specific spot they called nickelback; that guy always lined up over the slot receiver and blitzed a ton.

So it's going to look like a 3-4 at times, and there are only going to be three guys with their hand on the ground, and some announcers but definitely not Chris Spielman will talk about it as a 3-4, but I don't think it's really a 3-4. From my admittedly amateur perspective, it doesn't make any sense to take Mike Martin, a 290 pound penetrator, and turn him into a two-gap space eater. Nor does it make sense to take terror defensive end Brandon Graham and expose him to convenient double blocking on every play. Two gap defenses will probably be a changeup and nothing more. No matter how many people say it's a 3-4, don't believe them. It's not a 3-4.